Use anything but a ribbon, hmmm, I’m tired of using raffia. Aha, this beautiful cord came in one of the DT packs from Faith. Everything on this card can be purchased from Mark’s Finest Papers. I love this shimmery pink cardstock and the images are all from the Brick Wall set. I love the serenity of this set. Remember to play along with us and link your card up here to be in the drawing for a free stamp set being released in Aug.
Swaps are fun. I like the one that Mark’s Finest Paper has over at Speedy TV, hosted by my friend Patty Penn because we only send in four cards. The cards I received from the Spring Swap were gorgeous.
For the August swap we were to make a card that references something we like about summer. I love the birds and don’t get enough of watching them and hearing their cheerful songs. I chose this set, Little Birds with Big mouths to make my card. EVERYONE who enters receives a free stamp set. Come and play with us. You have until Aug 31 to play in the summer one and I see the post is up for the fall swap too!
A couple of weeks ago I hosted a Norwex party. It was great fun. If you haven’t heard about these cleaning products, do yourself a favor and check out Lana’s FB page here. You will cut your cleaning time in half and not use any harsh chemicals while doing it. The products actually make cleaning fun as you keep wanting to try the cloths to see if it will clean up ________________ You fill in the blank and most likely it will work.
The party was a huge success and I wanted to thank all the ladies who came with a special Thank You card. I didn’t have enough purple gingham paper and I switched to green but I like both of them.
And here’s a couple of close-ups of both of them.
I put little googly eyes on them for attention getters. The set is from Mark’s Finest Papers called Little Birds with Big mouths. It went pretty quick. I made twenty two cards and it took about an hour to make six of them. I did six at a time, assembly line fashion.
This card started out just on a little piece of scrap paper that I wanted to practice with my copic markers. Thanks so much to Suzanne Dean who has many youtube videos posted on how to shade with these wonderful markers. As I worked with it I remembered I need a card for my friend JoAnn, co-owner of The Stamp Shoppe. No pressure there, right? 
I do believe Copics are my newest favorite thing, now that I have a few more of them.
Did you know, Hobby Lobby and Michaels carry Copics now? Think 40% off coupon. Another tip, if you have a Smart Phone and you can bring up the Hobby Lobby web site, they will let you use the coupon right off your phone, how fun is that???
, Tips
We were challenged to use at least three hearts on our project. I was saved by having this Cuttlebug embossing folder in my stash! I have no heart stamps from MFP yet.
The images are from the Planted with Love set from MFP. So many ways to use this set, I’m having so much fun with it.
I took my ink pad and ran it over the inside of the embossing folder before running it through the Cuttlebug. It gave the impressions a nice soft green color, reminiscent of a garden, don’t you think? The strips are some plastic ribbon I still have in my stash. It’s almost gone now, hooray! But I did have fun with it. And the final touch, the twine bow. THIS is by far the best twine I have found anywhere. It’s soft but still has structure, it’s easy to work with, and ties beautifully. I tell you, MFP has some really nice things besides stamps and paper. Check them out for great deals.
Did you have fun with the blog hop? Congratulations to the winners. What a fun way to win and absorb new ideas at the same time.
Ah what a fun stamp set to use. Here, you have the seed packet for sunflowers from Planted With Love. Don’t you agree, these little ladies have THE cutest faces? I chose to make my first easel card. Here’s a link for you. http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/easelcard/ I wanted the flowers to look like they were sitting in a garden and I used three different color markers on a portion of the flower stamp from the Brick Wall set also from Mark’s Finest Papers to make it look like a vine. The very pretty ribbon is from there. Check them out for all your stamping needs. They DO have everything. It’s convenient.
Did you know, Mark’s Finest Papers has THE best prices on paper anywhere? The quality is really right up there and they give you a great deal compared to retail online or brick and mortar stores. Check them out if you want to save money.
If you use stamps from Mark’s Finest Paper you get your name entered twice and everyone has a chance to win one of the new release stamp sets. (and guess what? You get to use yours before we do) This one didn't photo too well. If you click on the picture you can see the detail and separation of the little birds better. 
Thanks for looking and remember to add your submission to Speedy’s blog for a chance to win a stamp set that will be released next month. This has been sitting waiting on my computer for over a month. I wanted to post it shortly after my other favorite things post but….I realized I had made the tutorial with stamps that I had to wait to be released from MFP before I could show them. This cloud stencil came from a rummage sale and I think it was Stampin’ Up. I use this thing ALL the time. It does make the most gorgeous skies.
Here is the image just stamped, then I
use the Encore Metallic lightly with a sponge. you are looking at the first lay down of the ink. It looks like the image is on top of the cloud but it’s not. The cloud stencil is on top of the image, just sponge softly. I just barely tap my sponge onto this ink pad, it picks up quite a bit of ink right away.
So here is the first layer done.
Place the stencil over the image again and lightly sponge with the remaining ink on the sponge to get a soft looking sky, turning the stencil at a different angle each time you sponge. That’s it, and it is a great effect. You will notice I use this a lot on many of my cards.
Just a simple piece of plastic but it really adds a nice touch. You an just cut some extra heavy cardstock with cloud shapes and use that. That’s what I did before I found this stencil. That works well too. This just holds up better over the long haul. Here’s the finished project.
Over at StampTV they are having two challenges per week on Monday and Friday. They are so much fun. Kind of stretches us outside of our comfort zone. Here’s my two cards I am entering into the random drawing over there. The boat image is from MFP
5 layers, 2 embellishments, 3 images, and 4 colors. It makes a nice looking card doesn’t it?
For this one we were to use a lot of white. I used white ribbon, white embossing powder and white die cut. My niece is going to have the 2nd girl out of 8 grand boys for my brother. This card is for her. She’s got about 15 weeks left to go. This was one of the stamps I picked up at the rummage. Love those good rummage sales.
Thanks for looking. This has been on my mind since I received my first easel card for my birthday from Patricia C. Now, I have never met Patricia but we are stamping buddies. That’s what’s so great about the social network. Patricia and I met on SplitCoastStampers known in the stamping world, simply as SCS. These cards are simple and fun to make and a bit interactive for the recipient. So here it is…drum roll please…..
Here’s the inside view up above. See how the outside of the card stands up against the pearls? It was really quite simple to make.
Here’s a picture of the example from SCS that I used and you can see why it’s called an easel card. That’s it, thanks for stopping by.
Smash-journaling
My friend Rebekah is such a great blogger and her blog is always refreshing and inspiring to read. She is offering a give-a-way (blog candy) for anyone interested in journaling type things or hands on scrapbooking. Look at this.
What a great beginners give-away. Visit her blog and she’ll tell you how you can get your name in a drawing for this great line-up of tools. That’s it for now. Happy JUNE-that means summer’s coming…(I sure hope so)
ODBD #62
Here’s another of the sketches this week. I sure am having fun with these. Really gets your brain to thinking. This one is from ODBD
That’s the really fun part.
